Looking for ways to get ‘skin’ in the game

Research team looks to commercialize skin-printing technology

It’s one thing to invent a machine that prints skin, but it’s a whole other challenge to bring what seems like the domain of mad science to mass production.

Last fall, a team at the University of Toronto invented a prototype 3D printer that, instead of extruding layers of plastic and other inorganic materials into physical shapes, builds layer upon layer of cell-laden tissue, a process that could lead to the cheap, rapid production of human skin.

The so-called bio printer was spearheaded by Axel Guenther and Milica Radisic, both associate professors from the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBE), and graduate students Lian Leng, Boyang Zhang, and Arianna McAllister.

While the project is still very much in its early stages, the team is working with MaRS Innovation, in collaboration with the University of Toronto’s Innovations and Partnerships Office (IPO), to find commercial applications for printed tissue in hospitals, research labs and more.

Right now, to create an artificial skin is about $30,000 to $40,000 with a very small surface area of coverage

“Right now, to create an artificial skin is about $30,000 to $40,000 with a very small surface area of coverage,” explained Fanny Sie, a project manager at MaRS Innovation, who described the tissue produced as “more of a functional Band-Aid.”

“So we focused the application on burn patients who have large surface area burns.”

Dr. Guenther, who spoke at Toronto’s annual ideacity conference in late June about his team’s invention, told the audience that the bio printer has a high enough throughput to produce one square meter of tissue “in something like 45 minutes.”

This makes it ideal for use in places like Sunnybrook Hopsital’s Health Sciences Centre, which is collaborating with Dr. Guenther on the project. Hundreds of patients with extensive burns are treated at the centre each year. He said a second-generation prototype will be ready by the fall.

But like many innovations in the scientific field, don’t go expecting to buy a device from the local Best Buy that can print skin of your own anytime soon. Ms. Sie estimates the time to market for a commercial tissue printer such as this to be between three and five years at best. She notes there is a competing tissue printer, manufactured by a company called Organovo, which can be used to print tissues for therapeutic and research purposes, but is mostly known for its more lucrative commercial applications — 3D printed leather and meat.

“We have to think of near-term revenues to meet the long-term goals of the project, so we also think of things that are faster or can get to the market quicker,” Ms. Sie explained.

While the holy grail is to be able to print fully functional organs, or more complex tissues with veins and glands, the team must first set their sights on more attainable applications — such as drug testing, or simple tissue-like bandages — to fund the ongoing development of more ambitious goals.

It needs to look a little more attractive than it does now

“It needs to be a little more user friendly, it needs to have a software component, and it needs to look a little more attractive than it does now,” according to Sonya Brijbassi, commercialization manager for the university’s Innovations and Partnerships Office. In other words, something that both looks and feels like it might fit into a hospital or healthcare setting,

Myriad questions remain. For example, although the machine itself is inexpensive (just a few thousand dollars in material parts, Dr. Guenther estimates), there is still the cost of regulatory approval and clinical trials, both of which must be factored into recovery costs.

Consumables — the various organic materials and components that the printer mixes together and extrudes as tissue — will cost money too.

“Are we going to create a company to build and sell these products? Are we going to retain a company to sell and disseminate the reagents?” Ms. Brijbassi asked. “Or, is it going to be a different route to market, to partner with an existing company that has the capacity for manufacturing and distributing already established?”